How do you make someone care about something they have no interest in?

Years ago, when Lou Nanne was running the Minnesota North Stars and they were quickly running out of time in Minneapolis, he compared the plight of his failing franchise to that of a restaurant in difficulty.

“It doesn’t matter how good your food is,” said Nanne. “If no one is eating it, you’re going out of business.”

There was nothing wrong with the North Stars food and the team didn’t go out of business. It moved to Dallas. The situation isn’t quite the same for the forever-treading-water Toronto Argonauts.

During a week in which they play a game with first place on the line, how do you get anyone interested in something they’ve lost interest in over time?

This is the continuing challenge for the Argos, with a wonderful new stadium, a progressive new coach, a new general manager, a deep history, and progressive ownership. This is a challenge of monumental proportions in a sporting city that has always been about ‘the cool place to be’ and the Argos happen to be cool if you’re white and around my age, and the mere mention of the name Leon McQuay brings with it a feeling of dismay.

This is also a time of odd juxtaposition on the Toronto sporting scene. The Argos are in the playoffs and if they win Saturday night in Vancouver, they finish first in the East, one home win away from the Grey Cup. That’s pretty remarkable considering the circumstances.

Toronto FC are in the playoffs. They opened up Monday night with a win in the kind of two-game total-goal playdowns they had years ago in the CFL and finish up with New York Red Bulls on Sunday afternoon at BMO Field.

The CFL is to football what MLS is to soccer. It’s not the big time but it’s the biggest time we have around here. It’s not the NFL or the Premier League. It’s closer to Off-Broadway than on, with absolute differences.

TFC is a hot ticket in Toronto, a front page story, a great day out, a memorable crowd, an average attendance of more than 27,000 per game: And a team this close to winning the first championship for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, their rich conglomerate owner.

Jordan Hamilton of Toronto FC (Postmedia)

The Argos are an easy ticket — you want one, you want five, no problem. One side of BMO Field is close to full for Argo home games, the other close to empty. And this is the same stadium that vibrates and shakes during TFC games, the Argos in need of good vibrations.

The average regular-season crowd for Argos games this season was less than 14,000, or just over half the TFC audience. And this is where life gets even more confusing.

The Argos want to build what TFC already has — an enthused fan base, an atmosphere inside the stadium and out, a star-based, engaged audience: This is what sport is supposed to feel like. And TFC wants to build what the Argos already have — a television audience they would kill for on TSN. TFC averaged 94,000 a game on TV across Canada for its regular-season matches this season. No doubt that number will climb for the playoffs — and it is already up from the 59,000 numbers of a year ago. So TV numbers are up more than 60%. That’s good.

The Argos are doing about 473,000 a game on TV. That is the rub here. They draw less than half what TFC does in the same stadium and yet they do almost five times the television audience. In Southern Ontario alone, the Argos have 60% more viewers than TFC. People who won’t go to Argos games will watch them on television. People will go to TFC games, but won’t watch them on TV — until playoff time.

Last year’s MLS Cup had 1.3 million people watching — an enormous MLS number for Canadian television. Last time the Argos were in the Grey Cup, they did 5.4 million across the country.

Almost owned by the same people, Larry Tanenbaum is chairman of both ownership groups — you might think one team could steal ideas from the other. But this isn’t so much about ideas, it’s about what is. A Toronto FC crowd looks like the city. It’s white and black and brown and Asian and young and old and diverse and not just a male audience. They’re all dressed up in scarves and colours and it’s part game, part event, part celebration — and that’s when sport is seemingly at its best.

An Argos crowd doesn’t look much like a subway ride in Toronto. The diversity comes more from the players than it does from the crowd. But what I rarely hear from anyone I know: You want to come over for the Argos game? I invite. I tailgate. I don’t get much response from friends. In fairness, I don’t get invitations for TFC games either, but that’s not my demographic. Both teams need to do more to become mainstream in this oversaturated market if they can ever be mainstream.

TFC seems on the path to relevance. The Argos are, still and always, paddling in circles.

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